LoseLose
by lefty21
Summary: Ryan ponders Seth, Summer, soul mates, and split personalities on Christmas morning. Mostly SS with some unrequited RS.


Disclaimer- I don't own it; have nothing to do with it.

Note- This is kind of an alternate way season two could have gone. Sort of a Christmas fic. Has some unrequited RS, but is mostly SS

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Ryan watched dismally from across the Cohen's living room as Seth and Summer exchanged gifts by the tree.

It was 8:30 on Christmas morning and thanks to Seth, the Cohens and Ryan had been up since six. It had taken more than two hours for the boys to unwrap the massive amount of presents that had been stuffed under the tree, and, as if it was timed perfectly, Summer arrived just a few minutes before 8:30, right as Seth threw away the wrapping from his last present.

Sandy and Kirsten greeted Summer with a hug and a 'Merry Christmas!' before excusing themselves to the kitchen. Ryan had wished her a merry Christmas from his spot on the couch, but didn't excuse himself as he watched Seth lead Summer over to the tree to the small pile of wrapped gifts that he had set aside for her. Ryan stayed in the living room under the guise of programming the new iPod the Cohens had gotten him.

But now, as he sat watching them five minutes later, his iPod dangled from his hand, completely forgotten, as he sullenly watched the couple. Seth had just presented Summer with some kind of gold jewelry, either a chain or necklace, Ryan couldn't exactly tell. When Ryan saw a wide smile spread across Summer's face, he could guess that Seth had most likely adorned the chain with some kind of charm that probably had something incredibly cheesy and Seth Cohen-like engraved on the back, like "S&S" or "SS forever".

A year ago, Ryan would have known exactly what was in every single one of those boxes for Summer. Now, though, the only one of Seth's gifts to Summer he knew about was the "Seth Cohen Refresher Pack", which Ryan knew from his own copy, was just a sequel to the "Starter Pack". When Seth and Summer first started going out last February, Ryan couldn't get Seth to shut up about it, and Seth couldn't force himself to stop going to Ryan for advice. This time around, though, Seth was being much more private. It's like in some weird way, he blamed Ryan for the collapse of the relationship the first time and now he wanted to keep Ryan as far away from it as possible just as a precaution.

Ryan found it all quite ridiculous and rather frustrating, especially considering it was really him Seth should have been thanking for the two of them finally getting back together.

When he and Seth first got back to Newport, Summer hated Seth and had no qualms about expressing her feelings to all of Harbor High, Newport Beach, and the rest of Orange County. Seth spent the first two and a half months of the school year depressed while Summer spent them trying to act completely indifferent and oblivious every time she saw Seth, or his name was even mentioned. A reconciliation between the two was most definitely not in the cards anytime soon.

And Ryan couldn't truthfully say that he was especially heart broken at the thought of them not getting back together, not that he would admit that out loud.

He wasn't exactly sure where this feeling had developed from, and he certainly couldn't explain it, he just knew that over the past six or so months, his feelings had definitely changed.

His opinion of _Summer Roberts _had most certainly evolved. Ryan went from considering her nothing more than Harbor High's resident party girl and slut, to 'She must be okay if Marissa and Seth see _so_ much in her,' to 'Wow, she really did like Seth. Now I feel kind of sorry that I told him to choose Anna,' to 'Oh, it's good that her and Seth are finally together,' to 'I can't believe that prick left her all alone with nothing, but a note. She deserves better,' and finally to, '_I_ could treat her so much better.'

And when Ryan finally admitted that last thought to himself, he didn't know what the hell to do or think, especially when he got back to Newport.

But, he felt he had actually handled it all pretty well. It really hadn't bothered him at all to see her with Zach, and some of those awkward feelings that had started to develop last spring, and over the summer as he thought about her, seemed to have faded away rather easily once he actually got back into close proximity with her. He eventually managed to convince himself that the feelings were really just a bout of homesickness for Newport, and Summer had basically been the epitome of Newport when he first arrived, so really, it all made since. Not to mention, it was much easier to claim that than to admit that he had actually had beyond-friendly feelings for the girl that his pseudo brother had been claiming as his soul mate since the first day Ryan met him.

And for the first two and a half months Ryan was back, everything was okay. Him and Marissa were actually, finally, for really the first time ever, getting into the friend stage. Him and the Cohens were getting along great, he was doing good in school, he talked to Summer- without feeling anything but platonic feelings, and he was even starting to date a little.

And really, Seth hadn't been doing as bad as he let on either, aside, of course, from a few moping spells where he would whine about Summer for a little bit and then move on. He had even started dating that girl Alex from The Bait Shop.

Everything had been going fine. Summer had Zach, Seth had Alex, Marissa had DJ and her booze, and, most importantly, Ryan had absolutely no drama in his life for the first time in years. And everyone was happy. They were all friends, they could all carry on civil conversations, and they even managed to all hang out together every once in awhile, while all of them still refused to completely forgive and forget all that had gone down the previous Spring.

Summer had been the worst about this. She could talk civilly to Seth, but other than when she absolutely had to, she hadn't really spoken to either him or Ryan at all. It wasn't that she couldn't forgive and forget, it was that she wanted to forgive and forget completely. She wanted to pretend that the last year had never happened. In her mind, it was just her and Marissa again, and she had no plans of letting any intruders break into their safe little inner circle again.

And up until right around Thanksgiving, Summer's strategy worked just fine. Cohen was nothing to her but a bad memory- her biggest mistake, and _the only _regret in her young life. His only significance to Summer was as a skeleton hidden in the darkest recesses of her proverbial closet. And for about one second right after he came back, she actually believed that. The rest of the time she spent trying to convince herself, Zach, Marissa, and everyone else that this _really _was how she felt.

But come the Saturday after Thanksgiving, her plan was totally shot to hell.

Seth and Alex had gone to a concert for some obscure band in LA, and, apparently, Alex knew one of the bartenders because they were able to get any drink of the alcoholic variety that they wanted, no questions asked, no I.D. requested- fake or otherwise.

And they took full advantage of it.

And, as they drove back through the Orange Curtain at somewhere around 3:00 in the morning, it caught up with them, or at least Alex. Because, according to Seth, one minute they were driving along the freeway perfectly fine and the next the car had somehow veered off the road and Seth and Alex were hanging upside down in the flipped Honda Accord in a drainage ditch.

And then there was nothing because they both got knocked unconscious from the impact. Someone in a passing car that had seen the accident called 911 and pulled Seth and Alex out of the car before it could become completely engulfed in the flame.

About an hour and a half later, Seth was in the E.R. at Hoag Hospital and Ryan and the Cohens were all waiting in the sitting room, each about one second away from hysteria.

When an E.R. doctor came out at about 5:30 and informed them that Seth was pretty banged up but would be okay, Ryan breathed a quick sigh of relief before offering to get some coffee and make some of the phone calls Ryan guessed Sandy and Kirsten were probably dreading. No one needed to be interrogated by _their _parents while their own child was just barely hanging onto life. So Ryan nobly sacrificed and made the calls himself so that _he _could be interrogated by Sandy's and Kirsten's mother and father, respectively.

He called the Nana first, seeing as it would be three hours later over there and he would be less likely to get bitched at for calling so early. When he told her what happened, he definitely didn't receive the reaction he was expecting. He figured she would have gone straight into questioning how it happened, who was at fault, were there drugs and alcohol involved, and so on. But when her only reaction was to cry and ask how Sandy and the rest of the family was doing, Ryan was taken aback. And he was suddenly worried about how stone cold Caleb would react when he gave him the news.

But when he called the Nichol house, it wasn't Caleb's but Marissa's tired voice that answered the phone. And when he told her, she immediately asked how _he_, Ryan, was doing, and Ryan was a little annoyed, because, well, _he_ wasn't the one just in an accident. But he blew past it and told her that he was hanging in there. When Marissa assured him that she would tell Caleb and Julie as soon as she hung up, Ryan gave a halfhearted, 'Thanks, goodbye,' before hanging up.

He was about to drop the cell phone back into his pocket when the thought of one more person he should call popped into his head. Summer Roberts.

She may have still been claiming only mild tolerance for Seth Cohen, but Ryan knew that there was nothing further from the truth. And he knew that she would kill him if she found out that he was the one making the calls and hadn't bothered to call her.

Besides, Ryan knew that Seth would want her to know, and, at that moment, that seemed like the most important thing.

So he called.

And when a gruff male voice answered with, "Who the hell is this?", he almost hung up. Summer's father had a very intimidating voice. But then he remembered that it was about Seth and he could suffer through the interrogation from Summer's father for his best friends sake.

So he respectfully but briskly informed Mr. Roberts of his name and that he was a friend of Summer's and that it was an emergency. When he inquired what kind of emergency, Ryan vaguely answered that a mutual friend of theirs had been in a car accident.

Mr. Roberts gave a quick and somewhat believable, "I'm sorry to hear that," before Ryan could hear him walking through the house, then softly opening a door, and then finally the sound of the tired and confused voice of Summer Roberts being woken up.

Ryan heard Mr. Roberts tell her it was him and that a friend had been in an accident.

A moment later Summer was on the phone asking in a very strained and shaking voice, "Is Cohen okay?"

"Yeah," Ryan answered immediately to relieve some of her fear. He heard Summer breathe a slight sigh of relief and wished he could leave it at that. "We'll, actually…" he breathed out slowly and felt very guilty when he heard Summer take in a labored breath.

"What?" she asked when he didn't continue after a second. "What is it?" she demanded bravely, despite the fear Ryan could tell she had of the possible answer.

"The E.R. doctor just said he was going to make it, but he was pretty banged up. He didn't tell us what condition Seth was actually in."

"So you don't know if he's conscious… half paralyzed… brain damaged?" she asked, the worry in her voice growing as she thought of one horrible possibility after another.

"No," Ryan answered weakly as all of the possibilities she had listed sunk into his own head. It hadn't hit him until that moment what the long term effects of this could be. He was starting to feel very nauseous. "He just said, Seth was going to survive," Ryan added distractedly as his mind continued to ponder Seth's condition.

The line was silent except for the sound of them breathing for a few moments.

Then Summer finally spoke softly, "Was _she_ with him?"

Ryan squinted his eyes in confusion as he tried to figure our who '_she_' was, then it hit him. Summer wanted to know if it was Alex's fault- if she was the reason Seth was in the hospital with God-knows-what injuries. "Yeah…" Ryan could practically feel the tension on the other side of the phone as he said this. "But, Summer, don't blame Al-"

"I don't," she answered quickly. "I'd blame myself before I blame her," she added solemnly.

"What do you mean?"

Summer sighed. "If I hadn't been such a bitch when he came back, and taken him back like every instinct- every part of me- told me to, he would have never even been with her; never would have been in the car with her drunk ass," she spat. "I assume she was drunk and driving, right?" she added for proper measure, to be sure she had all the facts before making accusations.

"Yeah," Ryan said distractedly, "But, Summer, you can't blame yourself for this. No one could blame you for not taking Seth back after what he did," Ryan tried to reason. He felt horribly for saying anything bad about Seth at the moment, and had no idea why he was trying to quell the sudden reemerging of Summer's feelings for him, but he couldn't help himself.

"But it's been three months. I've just been holding out to punish him… and now this happened," Summer breathed, and Ryan could tell she was trying not to cry. "He's in the emergency room fighting for his life because I wanted to make him feel even more guilty than he already did," she spat, self loathing evident.

"Summer, this didn't just happen because he was with Alex. It could have happened to any of us."

"Then why didn't it?" Summer challenged. "Why did it happen to him?"

Ryan sighed. "I don't know."

"I know," Summer replied, her voice distant but firm. "It's punishment. I wanted to punish Cohen for being selfish, so now God's punishing me and everyone else for me being so selfish and self-centered."

"Summer…" Ryan addressed her hesitantly. "I think you need to calm down- relax and get some sleep. This is a lost to process."

"No," Summer answered quickly. "I want to see him. Are you at Hoag?"

"You shouldn't come all the way down here now. It's early and the doctor said he'd probably be in the emergency for another few hours. And even then there's no telling when he'll wake up or be allowed visitors."

"I don't care," Summer responded firmly. "I don't want to not be there when he wakes up. I don't want him to think that I didn't care enough to be there."

"Summer, you know he wouldn't think that," Ryan argued, but he knew it was probably no use.

"Ryan," Summer addressed him warningly, "where are you?"

"Hoag," Ryan sighed and affirmed her original guess.

"Thank you," she said shortly.

She had hung up by the time Ryan could say anything else.

And thirty minutes later, Summer was sitting across from him in the waiting room looking completely out of it.

She had given Kirsten, Sandy, and him a supportive hug when she first arrived, but had otherwise remained quiet and isolated in her own corner of the waiting room.

And two hours later at eight o'clock when they were informed that Seth would be coming out of the E.R. any minute and be transferred to a room on the third floor, Summer had somehow used her status as daughter of the most loved plastic surgeon in Orange County to influence the receptionist to give up Seth's room number even though it was hospital policy to allow the patient to get situated before allowing visitors in to the room.

So when a sleeping Seth was wheeled in to room 327 at 8:17, they were all there waiting.

Summer and Kirsten gasped, while all four of them had to fight the urge not to cry at the sight of him.

There was a thick bandage wrapped around his head and they could tell that part of his beloved Jew-fro had to be shaved so the doctors could treat and dress the wound. Dark blood was visible under another bandage on his forehead and there were stitches on the right side of his upper lip. His entire left arm was engulfed in a bright white cast and a third bandage covered what they could tell was a deep gash on his right forearm. And these were just the injuries that they could see. There was no telling what was under the thin blanket.

Sandy wrapped his right arm around Kirsten's waist and placed a comforting hand on Summer's shoulder.

Ryan stared blankly as he tried to process that it was Seth lying broken and motionless in a hospital bed.

After the initial shock wore off of seeing him so helpless and pitiful, they waited. Kirsten's and Sandy's cells received a few calls from nosy Newpsies. Apparently Julie was living up to her name as top gossip, because half the population of Newport knew by nine o'clock.

Come one o'clock and still no movement, Ryan tried to convince at least one of the Cohens to get something to eat. It was bad enough worrying about Seth. He didn't want to have to worry about them to.

After much prodding and constant assurance that it would only take a few minutes they agreed to go.

Ryan also assured Summer that he would stay and make sure Seth didn't wake up to an empty room so she could go eat, but no amount of prodding could get her to consent. She said that she would grab something from the vending machine when they go back.

So Ryan reluctantly left her in the room with the unconscious Seth and escorted to Cohens down to the cafeteria.

And when he returned ten minutes later he walked in on a very tearful Seth and Summer. As Seth would claim later, he was just subconsciously waiting until he could be alone with Summer to wake up. And they certainly utilized that alone time, because as Ryan entered the small room, all he could hear were sobbing apologies and declarations of love from both.

Summer was hysterically apologizing for being so cruel, for not taking him back sooner, and for dating Zach, while Seth apologized for being so self-centered, and for being so stupid to even think that he could date Alex while he was so in love with her. And in the middle of this, they managed to throw in random declarations of love, and devotion, and promises to never be apart again.

And as Ryan listened to this, his stomach began to feel sick again, but not in the same way it had when he was worried about Seth. This was the sick tightening that he would get in his stomach at the end of last Spring whenever he would have to witness Seth and Summer together. The tightness in his stomach that felt like it wouldn't go away until he either punched Seth or kissed Summer. It was the same tightness in his stomach that had scared the hell out of him whenever he got over the Summer.

And it was scaring the hell out of him at that moment. He thought that those feelings had gone away. That they were just a confusing mistake to begin with. That they were gone for good. But all of a sudden, here they were again, and it felt like he had just gotten punched in the stomach.

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It had only gotten worse from there. For the next month Ryan did everything he could to get the feelings to go away but they only got stronger. And the more Seth and Summer became like the couple they were last Spring, the more he liked Summer, and _the less_ he liked Seth, by default.

He didn't understand it at first. Why was it that he only liked her when she was with Seth. Was it that whole sibling rivalry thing. Was just that he wanted what his "brother" had.

No, it couldn't be that, because he had never thought about or wanted Anna in the way that he thought about and wanted Summer.

And it wasn't just that he was really attracted to her, either. Well, he was- she was one of the hottest girls he had ever seen and that opinion had only strengthened it the past month- but there was so much more than that that made him feel this way about her.

She was clever, funny, sarcastic, and snarky, but at the same time, she was sweet, and cute, and considerate. She was really everything that most guys looked for in a woman, and as Ryan watched Seth enjoy all that in Summer from across the room, he kicked himself for not taking her up on her offer when he first came to Newport.

She had practically thrown herself at him on more than one occasion and he had never taken her up on it. But, really, as much as he was kicking himself for it now, he knew there had to be a logical reason that he passed her by.

The Summer that had thrown herself at him wasn't the Summer that he was in love wi- or liked- he corrected frantically in his head- not quite ready to admit to himself that his feelings were that strong- now. She was different; more shallow.

Ryan couldn't ever remember thinking of her as cute until a few months ago. For his first few months in Newport, he found almost everything she said shallow and annoying, but now he couldn't help but pay attention to every word that came out of her mouth. Her sarcasm had always been cruel before, now it was all clever and in good fun. And, mostly, all of her feelings seemed so on the surface before, Ryan would have been surprised if she was aware that anyone besides her and Marissa were even human. Now, it was hard for Ryan to recall a time in the last few months when she hasn't put someone else's well-being and feelings before her own.

She had completely evolved from the Summer he had first gotten acquainted with at Holly's party. And he had a very good suspicion as to why this Summer was so different, but he desperately didn't want to admit it, because then he would have to admit that there was a very good chance she would be the old Summer _if _and when he was ever lucky enough to have her.

That right there was his problem. He had concluded that a few days ago and had been pondering it ever since. He wasn't in love- or like- with just Summer… he was in love with Seth's Summer.

The idea confused him and he didn't like to think about it too deeply, but that was the only explanation he could come up with for his fluctuating feelings for her.

He had started to see her differently and develop these feelings for her a little while after her and

Seth first got together. When he left and spent the summer in Chino, the feelings were still there but not as strong because he wasn't seeing her on a regular basis like before. Then when he came back and saw that she was with Zach, the feelings completely disappeared.

When she was with Zach, she was different. Not, as upbeat and happy, not as sarcastic, and when she was, it was leaning more towards cruel again. She was inconsiderate towards most other people, except for Marissa, and Zach, now. She was superficial and cared more about clothes and status than actual people again. She wasn't as bad as she had been, but she certainly wasn't the Summer that Ryan had feelings for; _Seth's_ Summer.

Only Ryan didn't understand that at the time. He thought he had just gotten over the harmless little crush he had.

Now he realized that his harmless little crush was much more than that, and that he really wasn't over it at all. It was just in remission.

And when the Summer he had feelings for came back in full swing after the accident, his feelings came back, too.

And he didn't know what to do. It was a lose-lose situation. He only had feelings for Summer when she was with Seth- when she was the Summer that Seth brought out in her. And if, for some impossible reason, the two ever broke up again and Ryan had some morsel of a chance to be with her, he wouldn't want to because it wouldn't be his Summer, because his Summer was Seth's Summer. If she wasn't Seth's Summer, then she wasn't his Summer either. It all made tragic, depressing sense in his head.

And it killed him to know that no matter what happened, if he, by some miracle, was ever able to obtain Summer, he would never be able to bring out the Summer that Seth brought out.

So, like he said, it was a lose-lose situation. As long as Summer was with Seth, he would have feelings for her, but if she ever broke up with Seth, his feelings would go away because it wouldn't be the same Summer. Not to mention, if Seth ever found out that he had feelings for Summer, there friendship would be destroyed. So in actuality, it was really a lose-lose-lose situation.

It was times like these that Ryan really couldn't help but think that life would be so much easier in Chino. Sure, he wouldn't have a future, or family and friends that cared about him, or a new mini iPod, but he wouldn't have this problem either. He would have random hook-ups and the most significant feelings he ever would have had for a girl would have been what he felt for Theresa.

But things in Newport weren't that simple. They couldn't be. In Newport they had to have real, true honest-to-God best friends, and love triangles, and girls with split personalities. Newport had to have two completely different people that had nothing in common be soul mates and mess up any chance anyone else had with them. _Ryan was suddenly sympathizing with Anna_.

Newport always had to have the poor outsider looking in on something he or she could never have.

Marissa was always looking in on the good, functional family of the Cohens plus one Atwood, but she would never have it. Seth had always looked in on the naturally tan and built water polo players of Harbor High, but he was naturally skinny and always burned in the sun; it didn't really seem to bother him much anymore, though, now that he knew Summer preferred him lengthy and pale. Summer was always envying her boyfriend and best friend, who, despite Julie Cooper-Nichol being one of their parents, always had parents who loved them unconditionally and made them their number one priority.

Ryan had all that. The Cohens were his family now and Sandy and Kirsten were his parents. And he had never had a problem tanning or staying built with all the manual labor he had to do in his life. When he had first come to Newport he had been the outsider looking in on all that stuff, but now he had it all.

Now he was just the outsider looking in on the girl he could never have. He was constantly looking in on and imagining what it would be like to be the one that held her hand… walked her to class… dragged her to the Imax theater… or gym in his case.

And, ever since he had moved into the room next to Seth's after the accident to help him, he was forced to look in, or more correctly, _listen_ in on even more. He _had_ to listen in on Seth sneaking Summer into his room almost every night. Listen to them sometimes whisper and laugh, but most of the time all he heard was moaning. It hurt most when she moaned _his_ name; moaned, "Oh, god, Seth!" and "I love you, Seth."

It hurt mostly because, he could hear how much she loved it- _loved him_. How much she wanted it to be just like that, her and him, for the rest of her life. How she could never, _would never _like it or accept it any other way.

And Ryan was almost kind of grateful that she felt like that. As long as she was completely, one hundred percent, obliviously happy, then it wasn't a completely lose-lose situation. It was a lose-but you're not completely miserable situation because you still have two great friends and the possibility of one day making one girl the kind of girl that any guy would easily fall in love with.

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Thanks, please review.


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